Syllabus

Game of Life
NMIC 393, FMA 393
Spring 2005
Professor Hana Iverson (h.Iverson@temple.edu)
Professor Sarah Drury (sdrury@temple.edu)
Tuesday, 10am-2pm
AH 222

Description
This class will look at gaming structures and how they create a "universe". The course will include a consideration of social interaction on the web, and study the ways our lives and our media operate interactively. The question addressed will be: how can observation and participation in everyday gaming structures be translated into the notion of an interface? Reviewing a broad sample of work that demonstrates media collaborations across the fields of journalism , television, new media, and theatre, and both traditional and electronic games. Students will be given assignments and readings to provoke analysis of digital environments, to explore interactive narrative, and to inspire the creation of an interactive universe of their own construction. The final assignment will be to create the prototype of a game that other people can play that creates an interface in real or virtual space (or a combination thereof). Students will work in a broad array of material and media platforms; different software applications will be discussed as formal issues arise from the work presented. The documentation of the final projects will become an on-line portfolio for the class.

Goals of the Course
The purpose of this course is to examine the elements of our individual worlds and articulate what they are made of - both on a personal and social level. By applying game structures to those elements, we are looking at how to create an interface: to think about what engages each individual and how to extend that engagement to the notion of interactivity. Game structures provide the source for thinking of how to "frame" a project for group participation. Students will be asked to work both individually and in teams, and to create short games on the way to an end of semester project prototype. Students will be asked to demonstrate their integration of the material presented through writing assignments and class critique. Students will be expected to attend all classes as active participants in both class exercises and dialogue.

On-line Access
All students are expected to have frequent, dependable access to the internet, with a printer attached. In addition, it is essential that you have an active Temple e-mail account, for email with the teachers and with each other, and for access to the class Blackboard site. If you have any difficulties with either Internet access with printer or your Temple e-mail account, please see me after the first class.

On-line resources
The course web site can be found on Blackboard. The web site will grow over the course of the semester. Suggestions for additions are welcome.

Instructor Contact
The best way to reach the professors is by email. We generally check our email several times a day and therefore will respond quickly. If you want to make an appointment to meet, please use email to do so. Even though there will be a sign up sheet on Prof. Iverson's and Prof. Drury's office door, a sign-up appointment will not be confirmed until you have sent an email and receive a reply.

Readings
Many of the readings for this course will be handed out in class or provided online
Required Text:
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, MIT Press, 2003. $49.50. This book can be purchased online new or used. Students should order the book immediately.

Class Participation
The student writing assignments for this course are relatively light. This is a project based class and project completion will carry a major weight in assessing the student's progress. In-class presentations and overall student participation are an essential part of the process of understanding and integrating the material. Every effort will be made to help prepare students for formal presentations and to facilitate informal participation. Therefore participation is an important factor in assessing the student's grade.

Attendance and Lateness Policy Attendance Policy: Three or more absences will affect your grade. Five absences will result in a failing grade for the course. If you are going to be absent, please inform BOTH teachers by email at least 24 hours in advance. ABOVE ALL< KEEP BOTH OF US INFORMED BY EMAIL. If you are absent, it is YOUR responsibility to contact another student for the class notes from that day, and to make up any work in a timely fashion. Lateness Policy: 3 latenesses of up to 10 minutes will be counted as an absence. Being more than 10 minutes late will be counted as an absence. If you are late, it is your responsibility to let the teachers know when you come into class that you are here, and to make sure you have been marked as present.

Grading
Research, attendance and participation: 25%
Various short assignments: 15%
Writing assignments: 15%
Mid-Term Project: 20%
Final Project: 25% 

Schedule Overview

1/18 Class Introduction; Core Concepts
Assignment for 2/25: 1. Keep a diary for one day (at least 10 entries). For each entry, identify "rules," "goals," and "player activity," as discussed in class. 2. Read "The Garden of Forking Paths" by Jorge Luis Borges http://www.english.swt.edu/cohen_p/avant-garde/Literature/Borges/Garden.html Other resources on this story: http://www.themodernword.com/borges/index.html http://fajardo-acosta.com/worldlit/borges/garden.htm

1/25 Core Concepts more deeply -meaningful play -design -systems -interactivity -Defining games -The magic Circle -The Primary Schema Bring in favorite games for next week Discussion of Borges story Reading from week-long diaries

2/1 Game history briefly Self-Created Universe; Conceptual Thinking How is reality constructed? How does a game construct reality? How is this reality shown? Rules of "display" and the reality they define Conceptual Art: creating a concept, creating the universe Reading Assignment: Vito Acconci : a course in conceptual thinking Exercise: Take element of your own story and "build" a space, based on new set of rules of "display", using Visio/Inspiration. Think conceptually, symbolically, playfully

2/8 Video Game History and Methods of Programming Presentation by Rolf Lakaemper magicbytes (1981)

2/15 Play Review: display, conceptual thinking, evaluating assignments General definition of play Performance Interactivity On and offstage The Rules of Play 70's performance artists: Linda Montano & TehChing Hsieh John Cage Marina Abramovic Reading Assignment: Toys (in Myyhologies) by Roland Barthes

2/22 Experience; Physical Play; Dance

Game of Life: Some Thoughts on Dance
Marinetti: Manifesto of Futurist Dance http://www.futurism.org.uk/manifestos/manifesto53.htm
Dance of the Shrapnel
Dance of the Machine Gun
Dance of the Aviatrix

GET STUDENTS TO CREATE THEIR OWN DANCE INSTRUCTIONS AND DO THE DANCE DANCE: How does visual perspective change as you move? How does the mover form experience being a part of something (i.e., a machine in the Marinetti dance system)
Hand-Eye coordination: how does this differ from Mouse-Eye coordination? Circle Dance: re-enact the Jewish Wedding; The experience of being part of a moving whole
Square Dance: "Courtesy" and pattern; the primacy of the Pair;
Scrambling and re-assembling the Pair and re-assembling the Social Pattern of Courtesy
The Caller http://www.gildea.com/stephen/singers/pickle-up-a-doodle.html http://www.gildea.com/stephen/singers/pussy-cat.html

How-to
http://members.aol.com/CactusStar/home.htm

Social Dance I: the Leader and the Follower: The Waltz, Salsa, Swing, the Two-Step, the Polka, The Tango, etc.

Social Dance II: Free Form: what kind of leading and following takes place despite free form? What other kinds of exchange take place on a subtle level?

Social Dance III: Line Dancing http://members.aol.com/pbrown4715/dance01.htm Dance Performance:

Choreography: Moving according to Concept, Design, Esthetics

Diagrams describing Movement

Mapping movement: Labanotation http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/~griesbec/LABANE.HTML#Direction http://dancenotation.org/DNB/

Basic Ballroom Steps, Ballet, Folk Dance in Labanotation http://dancenotation.org/DNB/

3/1 Dance Pt. 2 Fencing Review of Dance assignments

3/8 SPRING BREAK

3/15 Place-based Games Cognitive maps; maps in general; pattern -- Geopositioning Spatial and wayfinding examples from architecture Social Relationships The narrative of artifact The French "Precieux": the map of the Land of Feeling Situationists: "Unitary Urbanism": "the urban environment as the terrain of a game in which one participates." The Situationist notion of "drift": moving through the city seeking places of participation and connection, an act of undermining capitalist utilitarianism The pedestrian speech act Reading Assignment: Computers as Theatre by Brenda Laurel, Ch. 1 & 5 Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino Assignment: make a Situationist-style Psychogeographic Map based on a "drift" through Temple campus. Include elements of: --A tool or instrument to assist in wayfinding --an element of social play in the neighborhood

3/23 Review of Place Games Benjamin - the storyteller The traveler who tells of his adventures The novelist who stays in one place and dreams

3/30 Narrative 2 possible interpretations framework for narrative/structure of communication situation character form autobiography: self as representation fiction/fact - media and the election journalism as "reality" diary as "world" - public/private How games diverge from narrative Narratives that are games Narratives that are NOT games Reading Assignment: First Person: new Media as Story, performance and game Janet Murray From game Story to Cyberdrama p.2 Assignment: Create a simple two character game - rules. Length of time, goals 4/5 Narrative, Pt. 2

4/12 Presentation of Schematics for Final Projec Prototypes: Group I

4/19 Presentation of Schematics for Final Projec Prototypes: Group II

4/26 Presentation of Final Projects: Group I

5/3 Presentation of Final Projects: Group II  

Student Work

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